UNLIMITED-ENGLISH

2010-09-01T22:27:00.001-07:00

Oil Spill Threatens Migratory Birds

As millions of birds head for the biggest spill in U.S. history, federal and nonprofit groups work with farmers to create safe alternative habitats

08-30-2010 // Laura Tangley

The BP oil spill has contaminated huge swaths of some of the continent's most critical bird habitat. Yet scientists say that, given the scale of the disaster, the toll of dead and injured birds to date—7,396 collected, 5,362 of them dead as of August 30—is lower than they initially expected. Compared to previous spills like the Exxon Valdez, which was much smaller, "our numbers have not been very dramatic," says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) biologist Gary Edwards, deputy regional director of the service's Alaska region recently deployed in Louisiana.

One reason may be that most birds that die do so in remote wetlands or far out at sea and are never located. In addition, a combination of favorable tides and winds, along with the southerly outflow of the Mississippi River, kept the bulk of the oil offshore during the early stages of the spill. This gave most spring migrants a chance to get past the danger zone and arrive safely at summer breeding grounds in the northern United States and Canada.

But that may be about to change.

Beginning this summer, millions of shorebirds, waterfowl and other birds will be flying into the Gulf region as fall migration gets under way. Some, such as shorebirds and songbirds, will be making short stops before setting off on long flights across the Gulf of Mexico to Central and South America. Others, including many ducks and geese, will spend the entire winter along the coast.

Having traveled hundreds, even thousands, of miles, all of these birds will be in desperate need of food and safe places to rest. But instead, they are "heading right for the biggest oil spill in this nation's history," says Paul Schmidt, FWS assistant director for migratory birds. "For more than a century," he adds, "we have worked to protect and restore migratory bird populations in North America. This conservation legacy is now jeopardized by the oil spill."

According to Schmidt, the U.S. Gulf Coast provides food and shelter to millions of birds of hundreds of species. "We estimate that literally hundreds of millions of birds use this area some time during their life cycle," he says. Straddling the Mississippi Flyway, one of the most important migratory bird corridors on Earth, the region hosts during their twice yearly migrations a major portion of all birds that breed in North America.

At Risk: Shorebirds

During migration, vast numbers of shorebirds stop in the Gulf region to replenish critical fat reserves by feeding on beaches and in wetlands, many now polluted by oil. They include sandpipers, dunlins, plovers, dowitchers, greater and lesser yellowlegs and red knots.

FWS has listed one plover, the piping plover, as an endangered species throughout much of its range. Piping plovers already have been spotted in the spill zone. Their numbers are expected to peak in August and September, and some will stay the entire winter.

At Risk: Waterfowl

Tom Moorman, director of conservation planning for the southern region of Ducks Unlimited, calls the Gulf Coast "the most important wintering area for waterfowl in North America."

Up to 13.7 million ducks and 1.5 million geese spend part or all of the winter in the region, dabbling for food near the surface of the water or diving beneath it. These species include red-heads, blue-winged teal, gadwalls, northern pintails and snow geese.

One duck of particular concern is the lesser scaup. "These birds have been declining for years, and no one knows exactly why," says NWF senior scientist Doug Inkley.

According to Moorman, more than a third of the continent's population of lesser scaup winter in the Gulf region—up to 1.4 million birds in some years. Scheduled to arrive in November, when they'll begin feeding in shallow offshore waters, "tens of thousands of scaup could die" if they dive into oil-contaminated water.

If oil kills their prey—dwarf surf clams—the birds are likely to move to areas where they can find food. One of the worst scenarios, says Moorman, would be if the ducks ate filter-feeding clams that had taken in oil. The hydrocarbons contained in oil could cause major physiological damage or impair future reproduction.

At Risk: Loons

About half the common loons that breed in the Midwestern United States winter along the Gulf Coast. They feed only on the water. Most at risk are young loons that will stay in the Gulf two to four years before flying back north.

Other birds that winter in or pass through the Gulf region during fall include grebes, cormorants, several species of tern, white pelicans and many songbird species. Year-round residents increasingly at risk include many herons and egrets.

Oil Spill Worsening Wetlands Loss

Inkley and Moorman point out that the BP spill is just the latest major insult to the Gulf's critical bird habitats. "The region's wetlands were created and are maintained by sediments carried downstream and deposited by the Mississippi River," says Inkley. Yet through actions such as building levees and carving out canals, "we've nearly stopped those natural processes and have done very little to rebuild the marshes."

Over the past century, coastal Louisiana has lost some 1.2 million acres of wetlands, says Moorman—nearly half of what it originally had. He fears the oil spill may accelerate this process.

A Helping Hand for Migrants

To try and minimize harm to migrating and overwintering birds, federal agencies are teaming up with conservation groups as well as farmers, ranchers and other large landowners to improve, restore and create new wetland habitat and provide sources of food away from oil-contaminated zones.

At a July 2 press conference, Schmidt described several soon-be-be-launched efforts by FWS to "minimize the entrance of oil into managed habitats along the Gulf and enhance the availability of migratory bird food resources outside oil-impacted areas"—primarily by flooding farm fields. Service workers also may try and haze birds out of contaminated areas using firecrackers, Mylar tape and other measures. In addition, said Schmidt, the presence of hundreds of people moving around oiled areas as they try to clean them "will certainly serve as a distraction or detractor for birds."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service is taking similar steps on lands within the federal Wetlands Reserve Program and on private agricultural lands in portions of eight states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas. Dubbed the Migratory Bird Habitat Initiative, the project is paying farmers to flood cultivated lands—particularly rice fields—to create new clean habitat for migrating shorebirds and wintering waterfowl.

On a smaller scale, Ducks Unlimited has received a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to work with farmers to flood rice fields and other agricultural lands in coastal rice-growing regions of Louisiana and Texas. "We're getting a good response so far," says Moorman. "Folks really want to help. We'll continue to ramp up the program as the migration season progresses."

Being "Realistic"

But these efforts have limits. "We think we can have localized effects that will prevent some oiling and provide some benefits to migratory birds," Schmidt said at the press conference. But "we're also realistic," he added. "We won't be able to dramatically affect migrations in any major way, shape or form. The birds are still expected to do what they do in a natural cycle."

BBC Learning English Newsletter 18 July 2008

2009-02-19T13:33:00.001-08:00

Welcome friends to your weekly Newsletter from BBC Learning English!

Face up to Phrasals

Amanda & Daisy: A friend in need?

Episode 6: What's going on?
Why doesn't Amanda want to go to the party?

Download script and help (60 K pdf)



Words in the News
China 'could reach moon by 2020'

Ask about English
Our expert gives advice on '...ing participle clauses'

How to ...
Language for when you want to borrow something.

This week:
Alice gets turned down for a move to a new job. How does she feel about this? You decide.

Language point:
This week we present some phrasal verbs connected with the topic of travel.

Go to this week's episode | Download this week's episode (278 K mp3)

Pronunciation tips
Learn all about the sounds of English and how to pronounce them.

Crossword
A crossowrd on the topic of cakes!

Audio, video and scripts
All of the latest downloads on one page: audio, scripts and activities.

Click here for more content

Working abroad

Your ideas

The Teacher

Downloadable worksheets to support the online/radio series

What do you think is important for a person who is working abroad?

Teaching resources to use with our award winning video series

View online version | Refer a friend

Word of the Day: miasma

2008-04-16T09:45:00.001-07:00

miasma \my-AZ-muh; mee-\, noun:

1. A vaporous exhalation (as of marshes or putrid matter) formerly thought to cause disease; broadly, a thick vaporous atmosphere or emanation.
2. A harmful or corrupting atmosphere or influence; also, an atmosphere that obscures; a fog.

The critics, he says, "will sit in their large automobiles, spewing a miasma of toxic gas into the atmosphere, and they will thank you for not smoking a cigarette."
-- Charles E. Little, "No One Communes Anymore", New York Times, October 17, 1993

To destroy such prejudices, which many a time rise and spread themselves like a miasma, is an imperative duty of theory, for the misbegotten offspring of human reason can also be in turn destroyed by pure reason.
-- Carl von Clausewitz, On War (translated by Colonel James John Graham)

He spends whatever money he has on hash and eventually heroin . . . and proceeds to sink into a miasma of anger and alienation.
-- Jhumpa Lahiri, "Money Talks in Pakistan", New York Times, March 12, 2000

Girls of my generation stumbled through much of our early adolescence in a dense miasma of longing.
-- Ellen Pall, "She had a Crush on Them", New York Times, July 29, 1990

Miasma comes from Greek miasma, "pollution," from miainein, "to pollute."

Word of the Day: camarilla

2008-04-07T10:38:00.001-07:00

camarilla \kam-uh-RIL-uh; -REE-yuh\, noun:

A group of secret and often scheming advisers, as of a king; a cabal or clique.

Mr Kiselev likened Yeltsin's entourage to a "camarilla" . . . which would turn Russia "into a gigantic banana republic corrupted from top to bottom by a rotten clique of demagogues".
-- Marcus Warren, "Moguls at war over control of Kremlin", Daily Telegraph, July 23, 1999

The arrest in October 1976 of Mao's radical camarilla, the so-called Gang of Four, led by his maniacal widow, Jiang Qing, was the second "liberation," delivering the Chinese from the most extreme forms of ideological conditioning.
-- Willem Van Kemenade, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Inc.

Camarilla comes from Spanish, literally, "a small room," from Late Latin camera, "chamber" ("vault; arched roof" in Latin), from Greek kamara, "vault."

Word of the Day: woebegone

2008-04-07T10:32:00.001-07:00

woebegone \WOE-bee-gon\, adjective:

1. Beset or overwhelmed with woe; immersed in grief or sorrow; woeful.
2. Being in a sorry condition; dismal-looking; dilapidated; run-down.

Socrates, condemned to death by the people of Athens, prepares to drink a cup of hemlock, surrounded by woebegone friends.
-- Alain De Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

This woebegone lot includes Henry, a real-estate developer whose dream project has, like his marriage, slipped into bankruptcy; Henry's sister, Wiloma, who has hurled herself headlong into the arms of a New Age church to survive her own divorce; and Henry and Wiloma's decrepit Uncle Brendan, a former monk whose faith has eroded along with his health, stranding him in a nursing home.
-- Jennifer Howard, review of The Forms of Water by Andrea Barrett, New York Times, June 13, 1996

After 40 years as a producer he thinks of himself as a battered, scarred but well-armoured animal, "like an old turtle"; and if such creatures could speak they would probably sound like [him], a bit woebegone but drolly unsurprised by life's vicissitudes.
-- "Time for another Hugo hit", Times (London), May 22, 2000

Woebegone is from Middle English wo begon, from wo (from Old English wa, used to express grief) + begon, past participle of begon, "to go about, to beset," from Old English began, bigan, from bi-, "around, about" + gan, "to go."

Word of the Day: bellwether

2008-04-03T10:00:00.001-07:00

bellwether \BEL-weth-uhr\, noun:

A leader of a movement or activity; also, a leading indicator of future trends.

Raised to believe they were among their generation's best and brightest, my class can be seen as a bellwether for a generation caught without a compass on the cutting edge of uncharted territory.
-- Elizabeth Fishel, Reunion: The Girls We Used to Be, the Women We Became

Before that election, Maine's proud citizens had fancied their state to be a sort of bellwether, a notion embodied in the saying "As Maine goes, so goes the nation."
-- Robert Shogan, The Fate of the Union

Bellwether is a compound of bell and wether, "a male sheep, usually castrated"; from the practice of hanging a bell from the neck of the leader of the flock.

Word of the Day: jollification

2008-04-01T07:08:00.001-07:00

jollification \jol-ih-fuh-KAY-shuhn\, noun:

Merrymaking; festivity; revelry.

Some inform; some prompt the conscience; some entertain, while having more than jollification in mind.
-- Stuart Klawans, "A Greek Bearing Gifts", The Nation, June 21, 1999

In July, expect the usual impertinent jollifications in Key West: look-alike and Key-lime-pie-eating contests, arm-wrestling tournaments.
-- David Gates, "Resurrecting Papa", Newsweek, April 12, 1999

Jollification is from jolly (from Old French joli, jolif, "joyful, merry") + Latin -ficare, combining form of facere, "to make."

Word of the Day: misnomer

2008-03-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

misnomer \mis-NO-muhr\, noun:

1. The misnaming of a person in a legal instrument, as in a complaint or indictment.
2. Any misnaming of a person or thing; also, a wrong or inapplicable name or designation.

Morning sickness is a misnomer -- it can strike any time.
-- Jane Bartlett, "Sick, and tired of it", Guardian, June 20, 2000

Copy cat is a misnomer because cats never copy anybody.
-- Carl Van Vechten, The Tiger in the House

The distinction between monkeys and apes is still muddled in the popular mind: Chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans are still frequently called "monkeys," and very good monkeys, such as Barbary "apes" and Celebes black "apes," continue to carry their misnomers.
-- Noel T. Boaz Ph.D., Eco Homo

Misnomer is from Medieval French mesnommer, "to misname," from mes-, "wrongly" + nommer, "to name," from Latin nominare, "to name," from nomen, "a name."

Word of the Day: anathema

2008-03-23T21:29:00.001-07:00

anathema \uh-NATH-uh-muh\, noun:

1. A ban or curse pronounced with religious solemnity by ecclesiastical authority, and accompanied by excommunication. Hence: Denunciation of anything as accursed.
2. An imprecation; a curse; a malediction.
3. Any person or thing anathematized, or cursed by ecclesiastical authority.
4. Any person or thing that is intensely disliked.

The Communists were not prepared to accept any compromises; it was anathema to them that Tibet should have an international personality beyond being a region of China.
-- Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows:A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947

Academies, the argument went, were anathema to creativity.
-- Deborah Solomon, "How to Succeed In Art", New York Times, June 27, 1999

Advertising was anathema to the Internet ethos, theysaid, and people would never pay for on-line material.
-- Steve Lohr, "The Freewheeling Net Meets the Free Market", New York Times, June 9, 1996

Anathema comes from the Greek word meaning "a thing devoted," especially a thing devoted to evil, hence "a curse," from anatithenai, "to dedicate, to set up," from ana, "up" + tithenai, "to place or put."

Word of the Day: remunerate

2008-03-22T10:23:00.001-07:00

remunerate \rih-MYOO-nuh-rate\, transitive verb:

1. To pay an equivalent to for any service, loss, or expense; to recompense.
2. To compensate for; to make payment for.

Not to suggest that our bosses remunerate us for our high moral standards, but creative bureaucrats at Mesa City Hall have invented a new fund from tax revenue that sets up a $20,000 account for each virtuous City Council member.
-- Art Thomason, "Mesa Puts Quite a Price on Discretion", Arizona Republic, May 18, 2000

The plaintiff could therefore only recover payment for her services if there was evidence of an implied or express contract by the business of which he was a partner (or by the plaintiff personally) to remunerate her for the work which she had done.
-- Kate O'Hanlon, "No damages for wife's gratuitous work", Independent, May 27, 1999

[The firm] wanted to meet long-term investment requirements out of retained profits and also to be able to properly remunerate all the staff and give them a share of the profits.
-- Roger Trapp, "Legal firms 'go offshore' to avoid litigation", Independent, May 2, 1996

Remunerate comes from Latin remunerari, "to reward," from re-, "back, again" + munerari, "to give, to present," from munus, "a gift."

Word of the Day: myriad

2008-03-21T23:35:00.001-07:00

myriad \MIR-ee-uhd\, adjective:

1. Consisting of a very great, but indefinite, number; as, myriad stars.
2. Composed of numerous diverse elements or aspects.
3. The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. (Chiefly in reference to the Greek numeral system, or in translations from Greek or Latin).
4. An immense number; a very great many; an indefinitely large number.

Home is a place to which one is attached by myriad habits of thought and behavior--culturally acquired, of course, yet in time they become so intimately woven into everyday existence that they seem primordial and the essence of one's being.
-- Yi-Fu Tuan, Escapism

Hawks and condors hunted all along the river, while myriad other bird species including cuckoos, owls, vireos, and woodpeckers inhabited the willow groves that flourished along its course.
-- Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River

The myriad mind of Shakespeare.
-- H. Reed, Lectures on the British Poets

The catastrophic melting of Earth's surface is just one out of a myriad of events that are waiting to occur as the universe and its contents grow older.
-- Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin, The Five Ages of the Universe

Myriad is from Greek myrias, myriad-, "ten thousand; a myriad," from myrios, "numberless; countless; ten thousand."

Speaking - "Giving orders and instructions "

2008-03-18T05:57:00.001-07:00

While learning english, I was eager to know how to make instructions in a very lucid and elegant manner. How can you ask someone to do something for you in English without sounding rude? So, here are some of the ways that you can give orders and instructions.

1. Use the imperative form

We use the imperative form to give orders, warnings and advice:

Be quiet!
Take care!
Listen to me carefully!

Because it can sound rude to give direct orders (especially if you are talking to an adult), we "soften" the imperative form with "let's" or "please":

Let's go now.
Please listen to what I'm saying.

2. Use a modal verb to turn the order into a request

We use modals to change the mood of a sentence. For example, "You should help her" is more polite than "Help her!"

Other modal verbs you can use to make requests are:

Could: Could you make me some tea?
Can: Can you come here please?
Will: Will you shut the door please?
Would: Would you wait here until the doctor is ready for you?

3. Use an introductory phrase to soften the order

Instead of using an imperative, you can use a phrase instead. Here are some common ways of phrasing an order, in order of the most indirect to the most direct:

Would you mind possibly… (+ ing) (Most indirect)
Would you mind possibly moving your car? It's parked right in front of mine.

I was hoping you could … (+ infinitive without to)
I was hoping you could spare me a few minutes this morning.

Do you think you could … (+ infinitive without to)
Do you think you could do this photocopying for me?

If you have a couple of minutes spare…
If you have a couple of minutes spare, the office needs tidying up.

I'd like you to…
I'd like you to file this correspondence for me.

I want you to…
I want you to finish this by tomorrow.

4. Use sequencing words

You can use sequencing words to make instructions clear.

Word of the Day: nefarious

2008-03-18T05:48:00.001-07:00

nefarious \nuh-FAIR-ee-uhs\, adjective:
Wicked in the extreme; iniquitous.
Despite involvement in protection, narcotics, strong-arm debt collecting, strikebreaking, and blackmail, among other nefarious activities, all of them professed to be a cut above mobsters in other lands.
-- Robert Whiting, Tokyo Underworld
The liar, however, can become a truly subversive and scandalous figure, whose nefarious influence may extend far more widely than her own individual actions.
-- John Forrester, Truth Games
Nefarious is from Latin nefarius, from nefas, "that which is contrary to divine command; a crime, transgression, sin," from ne-, "not" + fas, "divine command or law."

Word of the Day: chagrin

2008-03-17T00:24:00.001-07:00

chagrin \shuh-GRIN\, noun:

1. Acute vexation, annoyance, or embarrassment, arising from disappointment or failure.
2. To unsettle or vex by disappointment or humiliation; to mortify.

He ran away to the recruiting office at Ottumwa, a river port where Union soldiers were transported east--how he got to the town, a good half-day journey by wagon, isn't clear--and to his chagrin, he found his father waiting there.
-- Allen Barra, Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life and Many Legends

He noted with chagrin how little hair clung to his head.
-- John Marks, The Wall

Rich Moroni was earning $20,000 a year as a cook and was chagrined to discover that he couldn't keep up with the style of life and spending of his preferred reference group -- the lawyers and executives who shared his passion for squash and belonged to the same health club.
-- Peter T. Kilborn, "Splurge", New York Times, June 21, 1998

Chagrined to find that her current boyfriend has become best pals with her ex-boyfriend Hank, she goes to her ex with the problem.
-- Stephen J. Dubner, "Boston Rockers", New York Times, July 26, 1998

Chagrin is from the French, from chagrin, "sad."

Word of the Day for Tuesday, March 11, 2008

2008-03-15T22:20:00.001-07:00

assuage \uh-SWAYJ\, verb:

1. To make milder or less severe; to reduce the intensity of; to ease; to relieve.
2. To appease; to satisfy.
3. To soothe or calm; to pacify.

His generosity toward a group of young graffiti writers was, perhaps, one way to assuage his guilt.
-- Phoebe Hoban, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art

Even with the requirement of lay review boards, the code will fail to assuage concerns of the church's most vocal critics that the unseemly methods of the past won't repeat themselves.
-- "Bishops take step in right direction", Chicago Sun-Times, November 15, 2002

If only she would come outside
and let us meet her--face to face;
perhaps our words could turn
her anger's tide, perhaps
we could, if not erase,
at least assuage her rage.
-- Euripides, Medea edited by David R. Slavitt and Palmer Bovie

In one final attempt to assuage fears, the agency claims that these audits will comprise only "1.1 percent of the total audit-related contacts planned for the year."
-- Daniel J. Pilla, "IRS prepares to intensify its kinder, gentler audits", Insight on the News, April 29, 2002

Assuage comes from Latin ad + suavis, "sweet".